Nashville Predators Acquire Jack Drury

Despite being a restricted free agent this offseason, Drury is only one year away from becoming an unrestricted free agent. Given today’s trade, it’s clear that MacFarland is interested in keeping Drury around beyond the 2026-27 season. Still, any multi-year contract they sign Drury to will include some of his UFA years, so it won’t be as cheap as it otherwise would be. He is owed a $1.675MM qualifying offer.

Additionally, the Predators have also acquired Bradley in the swap. Despite being drafted by the Detroit Red Wings as the 203rd overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, he opted to spend his early 20s playing in the NCAA at the University of Connecticut. Last year, he signed as a collegiate free agent with the Colorado Avalanche.

Unfortunately, he has struggled in his transition to the professional ranks. Throughout the past two years, primarily spent with the AHL’s Colorado Eagles, Bradley has scored 23 goals and 34 points in 104 games with a +21 rating. He made his debut with the Avalanche in the 2024-25 season, primarily due to the numerous injuries the team suffered.

Meanwhile, Colorado acquires a pair of cost-controlled middle-six forwards in return. Svechkov and L’Heureux are each signed through the 2027-28 campaign at a $1.25MM and $875K salary, respectively.

Svechkov, 23, has the most NHL experience to date, having registered 12 goals and 34 points in 122 games over the past two seasons. Still, if the Avalanche plan to use him down the middle as a direct replacement for Drury, they will have taken a dramatic step back in the faceoff dot. Svechkov owns a career faceoff success rate of 40.5%.

Furthermore, Colorado will need to assist Svechkov in figuring out what kind of player he is. As a recent 19th overall pick, there’s obvious upside, but there’s no area of the game that Svechkov has excelled in through his brief tenure in the NHL. He has shown flashes of decent physicality and work on the defensive side of the puck, but it’s not nearly good enough to overlook his lack of offensive production.

Another recent first-round selection, it’s already well known what kind of player L’Heureux is and will continue to be. Throughout the 2024-25 campaign, he was a spark plug in the Predators’ bottom-six, scoring five goals and 15 points in 62 games, throwing 198 hits.

Unfortunately, he failed to return to that production through the 2025-26 campaign and spent most of his season with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals, scoring 14 goals and 28 points in 30 games. Still, unless the Avalanche flip him for another asset, he’ll likely have to start the 2026-27 season on Colorado’s roster, given that he’ll require waivers to be demoted to the AHL again.